Kill Devil Saison

All Grain:

6.5 lb Belgian Pilsner Malt
2 lb White Wheat Malt
6 oz Aromatic Malt
1 lb Fresh local honey (add after hop steep, before chilling)

0.4-0.5 oz Magnum (13.4% AA) @ 90 - adjust to hit about 30 IBU
1oz Hallertauer @ 10
1oz Hallertauer @ 0, steep 15 minutes (see below)

Mash @ 150 F for 60 minutes.
Ferment: Wyeast 3711 @ 74-76 degrees for a month
Carbonate to 2.5-3 volumes CO2


Partial Mash:

2 lb Wheat DME
1 lb Extra Light DME
4 lb Belgian Pilsner Malt
6 oz Aromatic Malt
1 lb Fresh local honey (add after hop steep, before chilling)

(Same hop bill, mash schedule, fermentation)


Extract: Not going to give you exactly the same thing, but if a partial mash is not possible, change the malt bill to....

2 lb Wheat DME
3.75 lb Extra Light DME OR 4.7 lb Pilsner LME
1 lb Fresh local honey (add after hop steep, before chilling)


The key with the honey is to get raw local honey. I get mine from the local Farmer's Market. You want the real stuff. Add the flame-out hops just before you cut off the heat, chill to about 200 degrees F, then cover the pot and let them steep for 15 minutes. Then stir in the honey and chill to pitching temp (about 70 degrees).

Originally, I assumed lower attenuation and was shooting for something lower in alcohol (closer to 6.5% ABV), as traditional farmhouse ales were closer to 5%. This yeast is a beast though! If you want something more sessionable, simply drop the Extra Light DME and/or 1 lb of the Wheat DME for partial mash, decrease the Extra Light Extract by a pound or so for all-extract, or decrease the Pilsner malt for all-grain. There shouldn't be any harm in doing this.

Taste: Outstanding signature spiciness from the Saison yeasts of this region. Subtle notes of lemon and citrus combine nicely with hints of honey. A little touch of crisp pilsner maltiness plays a very minor role. Very slight tartness. Finishes dry. Alcohol is barely noticable, but it is there. Dangerously drinkable. A very aromatic beer!

Enjoy. There is nothing like a good saison during the warmer months.

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This is a wonderful recipe, I am glad I brewed it and used that yeast. Very crisp and flavorful. The yeast brought it down to 1.000!

Kirbster said:

This is a wonderful recipe, I am glad I brewed it and used that yeast. Very crisp and flavorful. The yeast brought it down to 1.000!

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Yeah that yeast is a monster. Glad you liked it. I'm going to brew it again next year without the 10 minute addition and without the aromatic.

NCBeerNut - howdy from south of the Beltline here in Raleighwood. Wanted to say that you've got a great recipe that I will brew definitely again quite soon.

I made one slight procedural change. I like to add honey later in my fermentations because waiting to forces the yeast to chew up the complex sugars from the malt rather than just gorge themselves on the simpler sugar of the honey. Seems to work great and gives me cleaner beers. YMMV, of course, and that's the fun of the hobby!

ForRealBeer said:

NCBeerNut - howdy from south of the Beltline here in Raleighwood. Wanted to say that you've got a great recipe that I will brew definitely again quite soon.

I made one slight procedural change. I like to add honey later in my fermentations because waiting to forces the yeast to chew up the complex sugars from the malt rather than just gorge themselves on the simpler sugar of the honey. Seems to work great and gives me cleaner beers. YMMV, of course, and that's the fun of the hobby!

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Howdy neighbor. You definitely have a point. The honey I used was just so raw, that I don't trust it not to contaminate the batch. Also, 3711 doesn't discriminate, as you may have already noticed - it will tear through anything and everything. I hope your beer turned out well. By the way, this one really improves after a few months of aging if you have the patience. I found that out when I had about 6 bottles left.

Stay thirsty.

I hear you about six bottles, I have often had the sort of homebrewer's remorse. One time, though I got smart and left a case of bottles at my late grandmother's house for safekeeping. I got down to see her about six months later and had some of the best homebrew ever. Now that I keg, it's a little harder to do...

Also, you are right about 3711. That stuff will ferment anything it can get its teeth into.

I brewed a bunch of Saisons a couple years ago so I haven't brewed one in a while. I had the collaborative Saison Du Buff today and it inspired me to want to make another one. This recipe looks pretty solid so I may have to give it a whirl. I've liked the beers I've had with 3711 so I'm looking forward to using it in one of my own. Thanks for the recipe and there's a couple of handles on this thread that I don't recognize so let me know if you ever wanna come check out a GRABASS (Greater Raleigh Area Beer And Suds Sippers) event. It's a good time!

Brewing this again, keeping the recipe the mostly the same as last year. Dropping the aromatic to 4 oz and increasing the malt bill slightly to compensate for the new system. Will steep honey after flame out like last time. Using perle instead of magnum for bittering and took out the 5 min hop addition. Also, this saison hit a long stride over months so will keep a case to age 6+ months. 3711 dried mine out to 1.000 last time so hoping so again this time.

NCBeerNut, have you brewed this one again with your modified recipe? If so, what was the recipe, and how did it compare to the original?

I'm adding this to the list of up coming brews...

I'm brewing a saison soon without the honey and saaz or Mt hood instead of hallertau...also lower OG. Otherwise it's the same.

The original recipe was good, but didn't turn out exactly like I wanted it to.

unionrdr said:

Am I missing something? If you ferment down to 1.000,isn't that just watery alcohol? I'm thinking of brewing one of these saison's. But in leue of months on end to age it,...summer will be thanksgiving.

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i've brewed 2 saisons with this yeast- FG of 1002 with sugar and FG of 1003 with all malt... both with 3 week turn around. FAR from watery alcohol. i suggest giving it a shot.

So I modified this recipe, basically just excluding the Aromatic malt and honey so that it is just pilsner with a couple pounds of white wheat. I like it better now, and it really hits is sweet spot much faster than it did with the aromatic and honey. I aimed for an OG of 1.050.

As for the FG, alcohol is less dense than water so 1.000 is only an APPARENT attentuation of 100%, but the actual attenuation is less since you have to account for the change in desity as the ratio of alcohol to water increases with fermentation. Plus, there are tons of other compounds produced during fermentation the add to the flavor - sugars from the malt are only a small fraction of where the flavor comes from. It is actually a VERY flavorful beer, despite the FG.